“‘How ya doin’?’ is of course mere formality, only the most troubled would answer honestly for anything but the positive. […] ‘What do you do?’ is somewhat offensive.” Aaron walks through various other options—“Where are you from?” “What’s your major?” “What book have you read recently?”—and articulates why each one fails to start a worthwhile discussion. And then he offers his own hack:

Earlier this fall, EFF and MIT co-hosted the Freedom to Innovate Summit, bringing together student researchers from around the country to discuss threats to research and how universities can better support students. Video from several sessions recently became available online.

The Summit featured several noteworthy speakers, including students who had been forced to confront overzealous law enforcement authorities and prosecutors. One whose story gripped participants was former MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science student Star Simpson.

Today Public Knowledge, Engine, and EFF filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court about patent damages. This guest post is by former EFF apprentice legal intern Charles Duan, now the Director of Public Knowledge’s Patent Reform Project. It iscross-posted from Public Knowledge’s blog.

Copyright Lawsuits Won’t Stop People from Sharing Research

In principle, everyone in the world should have access to the same body of knowledge. The UN Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone deserves the right “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”

The reality is a bit messier. Institutional subscriptions to academic databases don’t cover every article someone would ever need. When scholars and professors find a reference to an article that they don’t have access to, they’ll often turn to less orthodox approaches: asking for the paper on Twitter or Facebook, emailing a friend at another institution, or even asking the author directly. For a lot of people, research amounts to a patchwork of sources culled together through authorized and unauthorized methods.